Sermon Tone Analysis
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Do you hate evil or do you just complain about it?
“The verb śānē and its derivatives have the root meaning “to hate.”
It expresses an emotional attitude toward persons and things which are opposed, detested, despised and with which one wishes to have no contact or relationship[1]”
[1] “2272 שָׂנֵא,” ed.
R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 880.
Do you hate evil?
Those who love the Lord should hate evil.
We should oppose it, detest it, despise it, and want no contact with it.
This idea of evil has two different connotations in the Old Testament.
Hate False Worship
First, when this verse says, “hate evil,” the context tells us that we should hate the false worship of God.
We are bombarded with a different spirit in our world.
Many Americans believe that it is a sin to be critical for one religious group to be critical of any other religious group.
The Bible doesn’t hesitate.
How many people who worshipped idols appreciated them being call worthless?
How insensitive!
How politically incorrect!
How true!
God will never be found in images of wood and stone.
God will never be found in the worship of creation.
God is not pleased when people credit “Mother Earth” for what he has done.
The history of Christianity includes times of greed, power and the killing of infidels.
Jesus has not called Christians to retaliate, exact revenge or kill unbelievers.
He has called us to love our enemies.
He has also called us to hate the worship of any God but the God of the Bible.
Paul says,
I have had people say, “I will go to their church and they said they would come to mine.”
That is ok if the church they go to is one that preaches the gospel.
But if that building is full of people who are not worshipping God, then we should not participate with them.
We are to flee idolatry or the worship of false gods.
Hate Sin
A second way that evil is used is to describe sin.
Evil is shown here as lying.
Evil is seen in any sin.
One hallmark of sin in the Bible is that when we commit it, it either hurts God, fellow humanity or it hurts us.
Sin tears down.
We should hate sin that tears things down.
People are hurt by physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
Backbiting and gossip have ruined many people.
Adultery, pornography, Sex trafficking and sexual sins have bruised people for life.
Should we say that it’s ok?
Should we be neutral?
Or should we hate evil?
We hate evil we find inside ourselves.
After following Jesus instructions and seeing a large catch of fish Luke records,
When we see this in ourselves, self-loathing is often the result.
But though it may be the immediate result, it should not be the end result.
For Peter, Job and Isaiah, these revelations of the evil within them were life-changing.
Why?
The realization of their own evil led them to repentance and faith in God through Jesus Christ.
Repentance describes that moment we realize that change is needed and we are going to do it.
We realize what we have done is wrong and doesn’t work and are looking for a new and different way.
God does not want just repentance.
He does not want us to just realize that we need change.
Many people who have the light go on then take the next step of following false religions, getting bad advice and for some, the self-loathing turns into suicide.
On the road to Emmaus, Jesus said,
God does not want just repentance.
He wants us to change by trusting in Jesus.
We are never trusting Jesus when we sin.
Repentance says that we need to change and we need to trust Jesus and do it his way.
When we trust Jesus, God forgives our sins.
God forgives all our sins.
Job, Isaiah and Peter experienced personally the great truth in…
It’s bad to be bad.
It’s worse if we are not only wrong, but the law comes in and affirms it.
That makes the sin even worse.
In other words, if I think I am wrong, that’s bad.
But if everyone agrees that I have done wrong, that makes the sense of sin increase even more.
If the Bible affirms it, then we feel awful about what we have done.
But where sin increases, grace increases.
We know that by grace we are saved through faith, but we often don’t experience the strength of this grace until we are in a position where we are fully aware that we don’t deserve grace.
This is where Job, Isaiah, and Peter were.
Yet God extended his grace to each of them.
If you forgive someone for cutting you off in line, that is good.
If you forgive someone for causing the death of a relative, that makes national news.
The apostle Paul cries out that “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us…”.
The greater our realization and hatred of our own sin, the greater our appreciation of God’s grace when we embrace it.
The songwriter said, “Grace, grace, God’s grace.
Grace that is greater than all our sin.”
If we hate evil in our own hearts, then…
We also hate seeing evil people getting away with their evil.
As people made in God’s image, we have a strong sense of justice.
We hear it from our children… “That’s not fair…” Even criminals believe in payback.
Karma is another word that describes justice.
What you give you will get back.
Paul writes that whatever a man sows that he will also reap.
That works in two directions.
If we do good, good comes back.
If we do evil, evil comes back.
We struggle with giving ourselves any grace.
We struggle more with giving others grace.
We hate the evil so much that we feel we are letting them off the hook.
We say, “It’s not right that they should get away with that…” We are right.
It’s not right.
The one who has faith in Jesus is justified.
They are made right.
Jesus is just in forgiving the one who sinned.
He was the lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.
He was the substitute who died in our place.
They needed to pay and Jesus paid it all.
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